Choosing Divergent
by SorryZurie
Summary: Her simulation test worked flawlessly, Candor was her rightful home. And yet Veloria chose Dauntless. When allegations of her being Divergent are tossed her way and her safety is put in jeopardy, will they be disputed or will they be proven true? Did Veloria's split decision leave her choosing Dauntless or did it leave her choosing Divergent?


Whispers filled the air all around me as the room settled into their seats. One thing about the Choosing Ceremony is that you can always count on it to begin on time. "Faction before blood, it's not fair. How are we supposed to just leave them like this." I hear someone say a few seats behind me.

"Why even bother lying to me? Your eyes give you away each time, how do you think you're going to fit in to Candor if you keep lying?" I hear someone else say. And they're right, initiation into Candor is a series of lie detector tests, and if you fail just _one _you're thrown out. At this point my palms have grown sweaty, the thought of being kicked out, of being factionless, rips at my innards in a way I never knew possible.

"Please, settle down." Jeanine, leader of the Erudite, finally speaks out and the crowd silences instantly. I wonder to myself what that kind of power feels like. I wonder if I could achieve something like that if I were to stay in Candor. "Many years ago, when the world was at the peak of it's destruction. An idea came to life, an idea of knowing. Knowing where to be and who you are. That particular idea is the reason we all sit here today, alive and in good health. The factions help us to continue to prosper. And that is why it is faction before blood." A few people applaud, although it's mostly adults who do so. "As always, we shall begin with the children from Amity. I ask that Johanna take the stage."

The leader of Amity practically glides onto stage, taking Jeanine's place. She scans the crowd with a lovely smile before beginning. "Emily Ale." Going in alphabetical order it takes twenty-five minutes to reach the last person. It's a boy named Richard Zak and he chooses Amity. "Faction before Blood." Johanna states as a closure and everyone claps.

Jeanine steps back on stage, "at this time I would like to call the leader of Abnegation forward. I find myself zoning out, contemplating my options. It's funny that I say options, the plural form, because everyone already knows what I'm going to choose. After Abnegation, Dauntless is next. I manage to snap out of my own thoughts long enough to see their leader take the stage. He's a scary looking man, way too many piercings they almost look as if they overlap each other. After each person is called up the Dauntless create a roar of applause, even before the person chooses. When they choose Dauntless the noise only elevates, and when they don't the room goes dead silent.

"Who would ever want to join Dauntless? They're a bunch of animals." The person to my right whispers. It takes me a few minutes to realize he's talking to me.

"Oh, I don't know. I guess it could be fun."

"You don't really mean that, do you?"

I look him in the eyes, as it is custom to do so in Candor when answering a question. "Yeah, I think I do." His eyes scan over my body for a moment, I watch him shake his head in disbelief before focusing back ahead.

"Candor's leader." Jeanine says as if she's grown tired of the ceremony. Our leader Alexander swiftly steps forward to take her place. His eyes seem to always reveal the truth of things. And the truth that I see in them today is that no one is ready to make their decision. We're just a bunch of kids after all, how are we supposed to really know something so vital, so monumentally difficult? It starts to feel like years have gone by before my name is called. "Veloria Rodriguez." My chest seems to collapse upon itself. With strength I had no idea existed, I push out of my seat and complete the two minute trip to the stage. In front of me are five different bowls containing five different symbols, one for each faction. My eyes automatically pull toward the bowl dedicated to Candor. I can just barely see my reflection in the glass that is our symbol. _Your eyes give you away each time._ I suddenly remember the person saying, and my eyes instantly shoot upward and at the crowd. At my faction._ People are waiting, _I tell myself. _Just pick Candor already and get off the stage! _I grab the knife with an unsteady hand. The blade trembles in my hand, if I can see it then I know everyone else can as well. "What's the matter sweetheart?"

A gentle hand lands on my back and I glance to my left, Alexander looks at me with comforting yet probing eyes. "The knife," is all I can manage to say.

"Squeamish. Very well then, would you like for me to help you?" He holds his hand out for the knife. I hand it over all too willingly. "It will hurt only a bit." I fixate on the cold metal of the blade from the moment it touches my skin to the moment Alexander wipes it off.

I turn back to the bowls. _This is it Veloria, faction over blood. _And in that moment, my hand extends over the bowl containing burning black coals. The heat warms my hand as I let the drops of blood find their scandalous home. A roar of applause fills the room as the Dauntless embrace my transfer. Before I can fully process what I've just done, I find myself heading toward my new faction. A few people pat me on the shoulders, another person hands me a cloth to wrap my hand with. I take it and find a new seat. This time I've completely spaced out, I don't care what else happens at the ceremony. My moment is over, which means my family is no more.

The Choosing Ceremony is finally over and I only know this because of the howls and hollers I hear from the Dauntless. It is then that I realize we're on the move. "Where are we going?" I manage to ask a girl running along side of me.

"It's the first part of initiation, train jumping!" She exclaims to me before sprinting to catch up with the rest of the group. I follow her lead and increase my speed, when I finally have a chance to stop and catch my breath we're standing by the train tracks.

"Are you alright?" A boy with shaggy hair asks me. I stare at him from a hunched over position. My lungs are on fire and each inhale sends waves of heat down my throat. "Did you just _not _do anything physical in Candor."

"Every...one but...me." I manage to answer through ragged breaths. A train horn whistles in the distance and another burst of hoops and hollers ignite from the Dauntless. The train comes into view and everyone begins to jog, all I can do is follow their lead. I refuse to become factionless. As they pick up speed so do I, and then all of a sudden the train is right next to us.

I'm searching for a way to get up and into it without tripping and being crushed underneath the wheels. "Why hasn't it slowed down a bit?" A boy next to me shouts to be heard over the sound of the trains frantic engine. We both spot a free handle then look each other over once more. _It's either you or him, Veloria. Make your move, or else you might as well head to the factionless. _We both push off with all of our might, only because I'm closer to the train I'm able to grab the handle. Kicking off from the ground I pull myself up into the train car.

"That was pretty ruthless, initiate." An older Dauntless member says to me before returning her focus to her friends. I watch as the boy frantically searches for another way aboard.

"Here!" I shout at him. "Take my hand, I'll pull you up!" He finally sees me, and forces himself to run even harder. "Come on!" I'm practically screaming at him, I can tell the train is moving even faster now. He's not going to make it, but I don't give up. Grabbing hold of the handle I lean further out of the train car door. It's just enough of an advantage for him and he grabs hold of me so strongly I nearly fall out completely. A scream escapes me and then I feel a set of hands wrapped around my waist. A force much stronger than my own pulls not only myself but the boy as well back into the train car.

I watch the boy collapse onto the metal floor. "That was pretty dumb, you nearly lost your life trying to help that kid get on. Why? Is he your brother or something?"

I shake my head no at the boy who stands before me. He's a few years older than me, I can see it in his face. "No, he's not my brother." I stare him in the eyes. "He's Dauntless, he's apart of my faction. We don't leave our faction behind."

The boy chuckles slightly. "He wouldn't have been, he wasn't going to make it. You knew that."

I look past him, and down at the boy who still seems to be recovering from the feat. "He's here isn't he?" The guy standing before me doesn't answer, he just stands there with a smirk on his face and his arms folded. "Then he made it."

"What's your name?" I assume he asks, because the train whistle blares once more.

I wait until it finishes before answer him. "Veloria, what's yours?"

"Four, like the number."

I let that settle in my head for a second. "And all these years I thought my name was weird." That makes him chuckle again.

"Is that an insult?" I know he's joking but the expression he gives sends a chill down my spine.

I'm preparing to tell him no, to tell him the truth, and then I stop myself. _You're not apart of Candor anymore, you can leave him guessing._ I shrug my shoulders a little too robotic, I only hope that he didn't notice it. "Maybe."

He smirks at me and then looks behind him and out at the skyline. We're going on a bridge and the buildings begin to fall beneath us. "Next stop is ours, I'll see you down below."

"Below?" I ask, but he doesn't answer me. Instead he just heads through the crowd. I want to watch him, figure out who he's going to talk to. But I decide against it and prepare for whatever lies ahead of me. On the bridge we hit a bend and I can see the front of the train, people are jumping out. "Hey! Someone help!" My eyes follow one girl in particular, I watch as she jumps from the train and lands on a roof top in a roll. She stands up seemingly unharmed.

"Someone said we're supposed to jump, that it's the only way." The boy that I helped onto the train says from behind me. "Come on, we just have to do it."

I nod, "on the count of two."

"Why two?" He stares at me confused.

"We're Dauntless now!" We both smile and then stare back out at our targeted roof top.

"One..." We say in unison. "Two!" We shout and then we're free falling through the air. Suddenly the wind is knocked out of me and my feet feel as if they've shattered into a million tiny pieces. But I've survived, the truth is that I made it and a smile shows brightly on my face.

I hear a shriek, someone squealing. Glancing around I finally discover it's birth place. "My leg!" The boy I just jumped with shouts while crying. I see him lying on his side holding his right knee. And then I see it, I see the bone in his leg jutting out. The severity of his impact causing it to crack right in half and split through his flesh. A pool of his own blood is beginning to form around him.

I rush over to him and the crowd of on lookers that is starting to form. I kneel before him unsure of what to do exactly. "Well don't just stand there, someone do something!"

"It's too late for him, he's already dead." Someone speaks up. I can't locate the face but I frown at the crowd anyway.

"No it's not, surely the Dauntless compound has an infirmary. Dauntless _have _to get hurt a some point, no one is invincible. We could take him to the infirmary." No one says a word, they all just stare at him.

"He can't complete his initiation with a broken leg." Suddenly the leader of the Dauntless appears in front of me. "We'll carry him to the factionless boarder, they'll take it from there."

At the word factionless, I can hear the boy cry out even more. The word stings in my chest, I can only imagine how it affects him. I turn back around to look at him. "You'll be fine...the factionless...they'll help you." It's the first lie I've ever told anyone in my entire life. I know just as well as he does, that he really is going to be dead if they leave him with the factionless. I pull off my mothers pearl necklace. "Here take this, maybe you can bargain something with it."

He looks at the necklace through wincing eyes of pain. "I can't take that." He whimpers.

"What am _I _going to do with it?" I try and smile, but I fail terribly. "Just take it." I place it in his shirt pocket. It's only now that I realize he was from Erudite. The light blue shirt signifying it.

"Well if you're done with the romantics," the leader of the Dauntless speaks up. "Four, Sean, Jason and Tyler can carry him, everyone else follow me. This _bump_ is just that, it's a bump in your imitation." I glare at him as he stalks past me.

I look back toward the boy, my expression a lot more soft now. "I'm Veloria by the way." I'm forced to step aside as Four and the rest of the guys hoist him off the ground and onto their shoulders as if they were hauling off a big piece of wood. "What's your name?" I begin to walk next to them, only they don't follow in the same direction as everyone else. It is in this moment that I have to choose, do I stay with him or do I follow my faction?

"Liam." He groans through gritted teeth. "Get out of here Veloria, you're going to get left behind."

I stare at Liam and then at the rest of my faction who now stands on the edge of the building. "It's fine, I'll be fine."

"You actually won't," Four interjects. "If you follow us, Eric will consider it your resignation from Dauntless." Eric must be the the leader of Dauntless. I stop dead in my tracks, and they continue to walk.

"It's okay, I understand." Liam looks at me, tears still rolling down the side of his face.

"You're going to be okay! I promise you, you'll be fine." Another lie, because I have absolutely no idea what lies beyond the factionless boarder. I have no idea what kind of people reside in the land of the factionless. And truth be told I have no idea if he'll even survive the walk to the boarder. I wave goodbye one last time and head for the rest of my faction. _My faction, so heartless for another human life. _The words sit funny in my head. _If you never extended your hand to Liam, this would have never happened. Sure he'd still be factionless, but at least then he'd have a fighting chance. _And in that moment, I hate myself and that...is truth.


End file.
